Fox Hills Leads the Pack in Size and Convenience
Culver City’s main shopping center is the Westside’s largest in square feet, and its most suburban in ambience.
“We’re not trying to be Beverly Center--we have a more middle-class market,” says marketing director Deborah Hardy, adding that the mall tries to offer “the basics--value for money, and convenience.”
Indeed, Fox Hills gets the highest marks on the Westside for convenience--access is easy and so is parking. Its location right off the San Diego Freeway enables it to also draw shoppers from the South Bay who don’t want to travel to Torrance to fight the crowds at Los Angeles County’s biggest mall, Del Amo Fashion Plaza.
Fox Hills has upgraded many of its stores in recent years. Supplementing its department store anchors is one of the biggest and most successful JC Penney outlets anywhere in the region.
The mall has established itself as the shopping center of choice for many of the affluent black residents of Ladera Heights and Baldwin Hills, and it is also the primary mall for residents of Westchester and Playa del Rey. Mall officials say Fox Hills’ clientele is composed of Anglos, blacks and Latinos in roughly equal numbers, with a smaller number of Asians.
Its record and video stores and sports apparel outlets have helped lure youthful shoppers to Fox Hills. It has also renovated its food area and has abundant center space that it uses for lavish displays for Christmas and other holidays.
The shopping center has not been on the cutting edge in drawing specialty stores, a key ingredient for future success in regional malls, according to retail analysts. However, its suburban-mall layout, with a vast parking lot, has been a hit with shoppers who don’t want to spend as much time looking for a parking space as they will in the stores.
Owned and operated by the Hahn Co., Fox Hills Mall in 1989 ranked 13th in total sales among the 45 largest shopping centers in Los Angeles County.
FOX HILLS MALL, CULVER CITY
Year opened: 1975
Retail square footage: 907,921
Anchor stores: J C Penney, the Broadway, May Co.
Number of stores: 143
Memorable feature: Huge center court with glass-enclosed staircase
